Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)

My Lords, I wish briefly to comment on and support the intent of Amendments 122, 123 and 124 tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, the basic problem with the Bill is that it includes absolutely nothing about what GBE will actually do. Yes, there are the objects in Clause 3 but, as we debated at some length previously, they set out only what GBE is allowed to do, not what it is intended to do. What it is intended to do—its objectives, if you like —will be set out in the statement of strategic priorities in Clause 5. We have not seen those and it would appear that we will not see them for a while—certainly not before the Bill passes. As the Constitution Committee pointed out, that key document will not be subject to any parliamentary scrutiny—in fact, the Constitution Committee referred to it as “disguised legislation”—nor is there anything in the Bill to prevent GBE starting its activities before that statement has been published. As I say, we have had several debates on this, so I will try not to repeat myself. There are a number of ways to do this: the new amendments in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, may or may not be the right way and we have had other amendments previously. However we do it, it is critical that at least some substantive level of parliamentary scrutiny should be available on how GBE intends to spend its £8.3 billion before it starts to spend significant amounts of money.